POP CULTURE

For anyone who wasn’t a straight, white, Christian man, 2017 was a hell of a year. Yes, our Reality Star-in-Chief made a couple of appearances on the blog — how could he not? The year also saw struggles for the trans community, convos with my kid about sex, and family game night made more tolerable by booze. It wasn’t an easy year, but it certainly was eventful. These are my 10 favorite blog posts of 2017.

December flew by like an icy, winter wind, scattering wrapping paper, dried up pine needles, and a smattering of holiday-themed lunch notes. So before I get too mired in the new year, here areDecember’s SuperLunchNotes!

I didn’t try to force themes onto each week, mainly because there were very few full weeks in December due to regular recurrences of holidays, bad weather, and sickness. Yet each note did have a bit of Christmas flair… or Hanukkah pizzaz in one case.

Star Butterfly is the lead character in Star vs. the Forces of Evil, one of the new batch of weird and wacky cartoons Jon has been watching lately. Though odd, I dig that Star is a powerful princess who takes no guff AND has a super sparkly wand! And several head-only Unicorns as pets. Like I said… odd.

The last couple months of the year are a downhill avalanche of festivities for our little fam. Halloween quickly gives way to Jon’s birthday week, which then steamrolls into Thanksgiving, and then it’s just all-holidays all-the-time until January 2nd. Mixed in with the holidays and birthdays was a lot of movie-going — all of which provided some great lunchtime inspiration. So grab some popcorn, a turkey leg, and a slice of birthday cake — here comes November’s SuperLunchNotes!

If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you know Comfort Cases is one of my all-time favorite organizations. Founded by my dear friend Rob Scheer, Comfort Cases provides overnight cases and other personal items to kids in the foster care system. The charity was inspired by the fact that Rob, his own four children, and millions of other kids arrive at foster homes with very few belongings, typically stuffed into garbage bags. #NoMoreTrashBags

This Thanksgiving weekend, Comfort Cases is helping boost spirits (and hoping to raise LOTS of money) with an AMAZING drag show featuring two of the sparkling stars of RuPaul’s Drag Race — Mrs. Kasha Davis and Tatianna!

THE DEETS:

Saturday, November 25 at Town Danceboutique. • Doors open at 7pm. • Tickets are $50 a person, and all proceeds benefit Comfort Cases. • This is a 21 and over event. • All tickets are general admission, so seating is first come, first served. • Drag show virgins: BRING DOLLAR BILLS, Y’ALL (Here’s more helpful drag show tips)

Look, I know this is Thanksgiving weekend and all, but can you think of any better counter-programming to ALL THE DAMN FOOTBALL than this?!? Leave the dude-bros to their sportsball, grab your favorite girlfriends/boyfriends, and head to Town to raise a ruckus and some money for a great cause!

EXCLUSIVE DESIGNER DADDY BONUS PERK:

How to win:•BUY YOUR TICKET (GO HERE. NOW.)• Come back to this post (or Facebook, Twitter, and wherever else I share this), and leave a comment telling me what you’re most thankful for.• Cross your fingers, snatch a four-leaf clover, kick a black cat out of the way, and hope you win!

Only one entry, per social media platform, per person. Winner will be notified by Friday, November 24. If you don’t show up, I will hunt you down and force-feed you an entire turducken.

Admit it — villains are more fun sometimes. They get all the good lines, they have the coolest gadgets and flashiest costumes, and they always go out with a bang. So in honor of Halloween and all things villainous, October SuperLunchNotes were ALL BAD GUYS ALL THE TIME. So sit back in your high-backed chair, stroke your white cat or twirl your mustache, and enjoy these devious doodles.

As we creep closer and closer to both Halloween and Season 2 of Stranger Things (OCT. 27!), I’m having a difficult time containing my ghoulish glee. So to pass the time I thought I’d give away some FREE NETFLIX!

Another school year is well underway (that would be second grade, folks), and I’ve already got a month’s worth of SuperLunchNotes to share. I’m gonna give it a go of posting notes a month at a time, but am always open to feedback, other ideas, and of course heaps and heaps of praise.

The night before the first day of school we watched Toy Story 2, so I thought it fitting to kick off 2nd grade with the playful stars of the franchise, Woody and Buzz Lightyear. That spawned the idea to do a duo-themed week, which in turned spawned two of Jon’s current favorite pairs, Phineas & Ferb and LEGO Batman & Robin. Fun fact: Man-of-few-words Ferb is voiced by Thomas Brodie-Sangster, also known for the role of Newt in the Maze Runner series and Jojen Reed in seasons 3 and 4 of Game of Thrones.

The folks from LEGO are back with another action-packed, sidesplitting, surefire hit with The LEGO Ninjago Movie… and Designer Daddy is here to hook you up with FREE tickets to an advance screening!

FREE MOVIE PASSES!

Thanks to the awesome bros at Warner Bros, I’m giving away a brickload of tickets to an advance screening of The LEGO NINJAGO Movie! The screening is Tuesday September 19, 7pm at Regal Majestic Stadium 20 in Silver Spring, MD.

The other day my 7-year-old was chatting away about some odd thing or another — a not infrequent occurrence. But this time instead of pretending to understand words like Zombie Pigmen or Squirtle, I heard a word I recognized: egomaniac. I didn’t catch the context, but knew immediately why this had entered my son’s lexicon: Trump. This got me wondering… What other words has my kid learned since DJT became president?

As a candidate and up through his first 222 days in office (but who’s counting?), 45 has introduced the American people to new levels of divisiveness, self-involvement, and volatility. He’s also introduced Americans — and our children — to a whole lot of new words.

Some of these are words adults don’t typically teach to kids due to them being entirely inappropriate. Many are words whose definitions have been tainted by POTUS-association. And quite a few are completely made up — maniacally spewed from Cheeto-In-Chief’s raging maw.

So as it’s a brand new school year, I’ve compiled a vocabulary list — an ABCs of the unfortunate, vulgar, disturbing words my child and others have learned these recent dark months.

THE ABCs of TRUMP

WARNING: As with everything Trump-related, some language may not be suitable for children. Or anyone, for that matter.

.A is forARMAGEDDON

Armageddon was one of those films I look forward to watching with my son in a few years. Perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon, devouring popcorn and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Now the actuality looms on the horizon, thanks to our posturing POTUS. Where’s a squad of slow-motion-walking misfits you need them?• Additional As:arrogant; alternative facts; alt-right.

B is forBIGLY

His ego knows no bounds — so it made sense Trump would make up a word to exaggerate his exaggerations. But it turned out that a) he was maybe saying big league instead; and b) bigly is an actual word, though categorized by Dictionary.com as archaic (meaning nobody uses it anymore, so you’re weird if you do). Either way, Merriam-Webster honored bigly as one of the most-searched words in 2016. And what was the top Word of the Year for 2016? Surreal. •Bonus Bs:buffoon; Breitbart; blowhard; bigot

(Aren’t you proud I made it through that without a single joke about Trump’s decidedly non-bigly hands?).READ FULL ARTICLE >>

Remember (it wasn’t that long ago) when you had to watch your favorite TV shows at a specific time every week, and only then? When there was no DVRing? No pausing or rewinding? No watching it anywhere other than on an actual TV?!? *SHUDDER*

Thanks the TV gods for technological advancements…. and for whoever first used “Netflix” as a verb. [note: I’m not talking about Netflix and Chill, though that certainly has it’s merits.] NETFLIXING is watching what you want, when you want, where you want, and how you want. A Mad Lib of entertainment, if you will. As a parent, this is especially helpful; finding time to watch my “grown-up” shows can be challenging, to say the least.

For an example, fill in the sentence below, with either your favorites or something completely random:

I just watched ___________ (number) episodes of ___________ (show) at ___________ (time) while ___________ (setting / situation) on my ___________ (mode of delivery).

A recent afternoon of Netflixing for me included the following components: 2; Wet Hot American Summer; 3:30pm, waiting at my 7-year-old’s summer camp pickup; phone. The possibilities are endless, and I’m sure most of you have way more awesome/hilarious/interesting outcomes than mine. Share them in the comments, and I’ll repost some of my favorites!

In the meantime, I’ve created some silly, pun-filled scenarios to help inspire you on how, where, when, and what to Netflix.